President Obama likes to encourage comparisons to Abraham Lincoln. Emulating Lincoln, for his inauguration he took a train from Illinois to Washington, D.C., where at his request he took the oath of office with his hand on Lincoln’s bible. Many in the media have made the same connection. Newsweek pictured the two men together on its cover and also depicted a penny featuring Obama’s face in place of Lincoln’s.

We too find ourselves frequently thinking of Lincoln when we hear Obama. But what strikes us is not the comparison but the contrast. True, both are lanky former lawyers with a connection to Illinois, and both spent all or part of just a single term in Congress before ascending to the White House. However, these similarities are relatively superficial, while the contrasts run deep.

Lincoln revered the American founding and dedicated his life to advancing its principles. Obama follows more in the tradition of Woodrow Wilson, who sought to repudiate the founding and replace its ideals of limited government with the progressive ideal of faith in a centralized administrative state (although Obama advances this agenda more in the spirit of FDR, who was far less forthcoming — and far more successful — than Wilson in achieving his ends).

This profound difference would provide enough of a contrast by itself. But the still-more striking contrast is between how the two men deal with what many would describe as the most challenging moral issues of their respective eras: how Lincoln dealt with slavery versus how Obama deals with abortion.

There are significant parallels between these two issues. Each is likely the political or moral issue about which Americans of their era have, or had, the most passionate feelings and the strongest opinions. Each was ultimately decided, at least for a while, by the Supreme Court — in favor of legalized slavery and legalized abortion. And each involves conflicting interpretations of fundamental natural rights — of liberty versus property in the case of slavery, of life versus liberty in the case of abortion.

In dealing with slavery, Lincoln demonstrated clarity in his speech, moderation in his actions, and a firm commitment to preserving the integrity of the Constitution regardless of his preferred policy outcomes. In dealing with abortion, Obama has demonstrated the opposite.

Both slavery and abortion ultimately reduce to competing claims over unalienable rights. No one can justly take the liberty or life of another if that other qualifies for the rights with which all of humanity is endowed. Thus, debates over slavery eventually became — as debates over abortion eventually become — debates over the humanity of the slave or the fetus. If the slave or the fetus are among those beings who, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, “are created equal” and “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” then their unalienable rights to life (in the case of abortion) and liberty (in the case of slavery) must be secured. If they are not, then a slave-master may be said to have a right to property in a slave, and a pregnant woman may be said to have a right to liberty in the form of abortion.

In speech, Lincoln did not equivocate on where he stood on these competing notions of rights. During his famous debates with Stephen Douglas, he said that “there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence. … [I]n the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas and the equal of every living man.” Across the debates and the years, Lincoln never wavered on this position.

Obama has not been nearly so clear. When, as a candidate, he was asked whether life begins at the moment of conception, he famously replied that the question was “above his pay grade.” Furthermore, his words have varied greatly depending upon his audience. When speaking at Messiah College, a small Christian school, he said, “What I know is that there is something extraordinarily powerful about potential life and that that has a moral weight to it that we take into consideration when we’re having these debates.” When speaking at Notre Dame, he spoke of the “moral and spiritual dimensions” of abortion and pledged to “work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions.” In marked contrast, when addressing Planned Parenthood last year, he said, “Thanks to all of you at Planned Parenthood for all the work you are doing for women … and for men who have enough sense to realize you are helping them.”

When speaking to anti-abortion crowds or to more general audiences, Obama’s rhetoric is less reminiscent of Lincoln’s and more reminiscent of Lincoln’s adversary, Douglas, who claimed an agnostic position on slavery’s morality and embraced the pro-choice position of allowing the people to choose whether or not to legalize slavery in their own state or territory. When speaking to pro-abortion crowds, his rhetoric is no longer agnostic but is the rhetoric of the true believer.

Where Lincoln sought to clarify, Obama seeks to obscure; where Lincoln educated, Obama has pandered, adjusting his message to his audience. The two men’s rhetoric seems to have very different aims.

In action, Lincoln sought not the immediate abolition of slavery but congressional action to prevent slavery’s expansion into the territories or the new states, along with the public recognition of that practice as wrong — a recognition that would likely lead toward slavery’s gradual elimination. Although as he would later put it in his second inaugural, “the war came,” he didn’t take action to end slavery in the South (prior to the war) because he didn’t wish to invite that violent and terrible result. He adhered to his principles with steadfast consistency, but he applied them with prudence and judiciousness.

Obama, on the other hand, has adopted many policies on the relatively extreme edge of the abortion debate. He has reinstituted the use of U.S. foreign aid to fund overseas abortions and has promised to sign the “Freedom of Choice Act” should it make it to his desk. As a state senator in Illinois, he voted against the Infants Born Alive Act, which sought to give legal protection to those who survive abortions and are delivered alive. As a candidate, he was supportive of partial-birth abortion, criticizing the Gonzalez v. Carhart decision that upheld laws prohibiting that practice. If Obama’s rhetoric often recalls that of Douglas, his policies more easily recall the hard-line pro-slavery stance of John C. Calhoun.

What helped moderate Lincoln’s policies was his deep respect for the integrity of the law and the Constitution. Lincoln insisted on having his cake and eating it too: he sought to stop the spread of slavery, but he insisted that the proper legal and constitutional forms be observed throughout that effort. The legal means were even more important to him than the policy ends.

Thus, he broke with the abolitionists who claimed that the Constitution required an anti-slavery policy, when he knew it didn’t. When the Supreme Court used that same sword in reverse, claiming in Dred Scott v. Sandford that the Constitution required a pro-slavery policy, he criticized the decision as not being true to the Constitution (which required neither policy) and argued that the people should work to overturn it in subsequent cases. But he nevertheless insisted that that decision, which he held to be erroneous, be respected as law. Lincoln refused to use the Constitution as a tool to promote his own policy agenda. He was not a “living constitutionalist”; he believed in the fixed rule of law, not the arbitrary rule of man. He regarded the integrity of legal forms as more important than any single issue, even an issue on the magnitude of slavery.

In this vein, Obama stands again as Lincoln’s opposite. Roe v. Wade, the case in which the Supreme Court claimed that the Constitution requires a pro-abortion policy, has arguably now surpassed Dred Scott (which was soon overturned by the war and subsequent amendments) and all others as the most controversial case in U.S. history. Like Dred Scott, it was a rather naked policy-based ruling with very little textual support. As in Dred Scott, the Court claimed that the constitutional guarantee of “due process of law” requires not only that the appropriate legal process be followed, but that such processes achieve the result that the Court desires — a very different thing. Whatever one thinks of them morally, the two cases are strikingly similar legally. Despite this, Obama has made it clear that he would not appoint a justice to the Supreme Court who would not uphold Roe if the case were to be challenged on appeal.

While Lincoln condemned courts that impose rulings that the Constitution doesn’t require — whether he agreed morally with those rulings or not — Obama insists that justices adopt this approach. Here, Obama sounds more like the author of Dred Scott, Chief Justice Roger Taney, than like Lincoln himself.

In speech, action, and deference to the Constitution and laws, the contrast between Lincoln on slavery and Obama on abortion could hardly be plainer. While Lincoln was clear in speech, moderate in action, and put the Constitution above his most cherished policy goals, Obama has been obfuscatory in speech, immoderate in action, and has put his personal policy goals above the Constitution — including letting those goals strongly influence whom to nominate to the Supreme Court.

To merit the comparisons to Lincoln that he and his partisans promote, Obama needs to start speaking, acting, and thinking like Lincoln — instead of speaking, acting, and thinking more like Lincoln’s adversaries.

Mr. Anderson was the senior speechwriter for the Secretary of Health and Human Services and was a professor of political science at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Mr. Guerra is a professor of political science and history at Vanguard University.

51 Comments, 51 Threads

If Lincoln and Barack went to the same Halloween Party they could have gone as opposites in terms.

Obama is a thief. In bed with ACORN who’s primary objective is to steal votes.

Lincoln was an American who tried to keep the Republic together. He was so honest, even his adversaries called him, “Honest Abe.”

Obama is a liar. He promised to protect, preserve and defend the constitution. In nominating Sotomayor, he’s wants to use the supreme court to change the constitution, greatly modify four of the first ten amendments. Obama promised he would veto earmarks.

Lincoln respected the constitution. And knew what was in it. Not what he hoped was in it.

Obama spits on the ideals this country was founded upon. Like private enterprise.

Lincoln believed in the ideals this country was founded upon, like self reliance, equal work for equal pay. Every man being created equal to seek the American Dream.

Obama in giving hundreds of million in earmarks in unread bills has rewarded friends and supporters by making them zillionaires; calling the money reparation money that was long owed to them.

Lincoln was a brave, courageous backwoodsman who became a lawyer and then a president.

Obama was a friend to domestic terrorists who would have been hung in Lincoln’s time.

Lincoln told the people the truth.

Obama tells the people a pack of lies.

The only meaningful that’s the same about the two men is their gender.

Yep and in Carl Sandburg’s Lincoln biography, Sandburg states that it was believed Wilkes Booth was high on pot when he shot Lincoln. Sandburg also indicates that it was common thought at that time, (and scientific fact these days), that marijuana had the effect of bolstering and inflating it’s user’s egoisim. That’s why these people are so perverse in their thinking.
Like I said send a cop into that White House garden of theirs and see what’s there. Then arrest the President if it’s somethin’ that shouldn’t be. Be a hero, just do yer job.

In the 1860s there were two major parties, the Republicans and Democrats.

One of the main issues of that day was the level of the tariff. Generally speaking, the Democrats, representing the South and agriculture, were for a lower tariff, the Republicans, representing the North and manufacturing, were for a higher tariff.

Now, thinking back, we can also recall that tariffs were one of the main sources of revenue for the government of the United States at this time.

Therefore, Abraham Lincoln was head of the party for a larger, more active, National government.

Gosh Josh, yet another fool supporting the coward Guerra, ignoring the article, and just attempting to twist this fine article with some unfounded bull crap about Lincoln and big government.
Gosh Josh, I suppose next you will tell us that Obama is for small government based upon his position on tariffs.

Q: Why is it that liberals very seldom document or can defend their positions?

Ses:
I am not supporting Guerra, I am contradicting him. You got that backwards.
Many amateur historians of the first 100 years in America know the Whig+Republican versus Democratic views on tariffs. I wouldn’t think anyone would try to refute that, so I didn’t think to provide documentation. Here is a website that shows the tariff debate over the relevant period. You can see that the Whig vs. Democratic positions: http://www.tax.org/Museum/1816-1860.htm

And, of course, if you are for higher taxes, the result is a government which does more, since it has more funds to do it. This is very simple logic that I thought any Republican could understand.

In the 1860s there were two major parties, the Republicans and Democrats.

One of the main issues of that day was the level of the tariff. Generally speaking, the Democrats, representing the South and agriculture, were for a lower tariff, the Republicans, representing the North and manufacturing, were for a higher tariff.

Now, thinking back, we can also recall that tariffs were one of the main sources of revenue for the government of the United States at this time.

Therefore, Abraham Lincoln was head of the party for a larger, more active, National government.

This is the exact opposite of what Anderson and Guerra suggest.

Tarifs had been decreasing continuously for decades except for a short raise during the 1858 crisis, that is during a Democratic Presidency.

Tarifs were only a very minor issue and none of the secessiunists saw it as a major problem. It was only when the war started and the CSA needed to improve her image in Europe in order to be recognized that the tarif issue was aired as a reason for sec esssion.

The biggest flaw here is that slave owners didn’t deny the humanity of their slaves. They sometimes argued that blacks were “not parties to our social compact” but they did not deny that slaves were human.

Instead, slavery apologists such as George Fitzhugh in Cannibals All! argued that slavery was good for blacks, who would otherwise be abused and taken advantage of by those nasty Northern capitalists. And that’s a parallel: abortion apologists claim that it’s better to abort a baby, rather than have it be born into a family where he or she will be abused or neglected.

Oh yes, Fitzhugh’s use of the term “Cannibals” in the title refers not to Africans, but to Northern capitalists. There are so many parallels between Fitzhugh’s abuse of capitalism, and Marx’s writings, that some historians have looked for evidence that Marx had read Fitzhugh’s book.

JFM: Your argument and history needs some brushing up.
I never said anything about it being, or not being, an important issue. Anderson and Guerra say Lincoln was for smaller government. Lincoln was a Whig and a Republican, the party of larger government.

As for the history of the Whigs and Republicans being for higher tariffs, while the Democrats being for lower ones, you need a serious history lesson.

Every single tariff adjustment listed in the link I provided earlier is consistent with Democrats being anti-tariff, Republicans being pro-tariff.

In fact, the Whigs wanted higher taxes (tariffs) during Depressions in order to fund public improvements and help the States.

Since tariffs were the principal source of Federal funding, it was the fundamental question with regards to the amount of activity of the Federal government.

There’s very little “radical” about Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska. For every Radical Republican there was probably one or more Stalwart Republican, who was happy to let the spoils system continue to spoil things.

To JFM: Au Contraire. Tariffs were a big deal for the South. Income taxes didn’t exist. The south traded with Europe for manufactured goods because the perception at the time was that British, German or French products were superior to those manufactured in the north. Northern products were viewed much as early post-WW II Japanese products were.

The Morril tariff resulted in southern states paying over 2/3 the cost of the federal government. This amount was paid by roughly a quarter of the population. It was cause for resentment. There had been earlier trouble over tariffs. Northern states wanted them to protect their industries.

With respect to establishing large federal government, the Lincoln administration was for good or ill the watershed between the Jeffersonian republic and what led to the Great Society.

Some will argue that the Railroad Act was responsible for 19th century US growth. That is a different topic. It is worthy of noting in passing that the Act that created the transcontinental railroad gave railroads tremendous assets in the form of land and money.

The necessities of war caused an expansion of government for Lincoln. I would question whether the war was necessary at all. Nothing in the Constitution prohibits secession. After all, we seceded from Englad, so there was precedent.

Had the federal government not responded to secession by calling for troops from states that had not left the Union, it is likely that North Carolina, Virginia and several other southern states would not have seceded. War would have been averted.

What is more important in that scenario is that the few states that had seceded by Lincoln’s inauguration were relatively insignificant and not necessarily contiguous bits or territory. Such a confederacy would not have survived long economically had trade with the US been halted.

For that matter, the war would not have lasted as long as it did had there been no trade between north and south during the war.

In case you are interested, I am a southerner and am descended from southern unionists. Over a third of all southerners who participated in that war were on the union side.

“The Morril tariff resulted in southern states paying over 2/3 the cost of the federal government. This amount was paid by roughly a quarter of the population. It was cause for resentment.”

Since the Morril tariff wasn’t passed until March 2, 1861, and Southern states had already started seceding in December of 1860, I don’t think this is a particularly persuasive cause. Read South Carolina’s reason for leaving: it’s about slavery, not tariffs.

“Lincoln was a dog who destroyed the Federal Union & paved the way for every evil in American governance ever since.”

Oh really? You mean like Gerrymandering? Well, that’s named for Elbridge Gerry–and predates Lincoln by decades.

Corruption of public officials? You can lay that on Democrats involved with Tammany Hall well before the war.

Playing the race card? That’s something that Democrats did repeatedly in the 1850s, insisting that Republicans were going to have black men marrying white women. (And see? We did it! Justice Thomas!)

There are aspects to what Lincoln did that were clearly unlawful, such as arresting members of the Maryland legislature to prevent Maryland from seceding. But let’s not imagine that on one side there’s big bad Lincoln, and on the other side, a libertarian South (as some have fantasized). That’s simply not the case.

This is a strange article, with an odd point of view. The responses, in my view, have added to the strangeness without illuminating much.

First, comparing any politician in the 21st Century with one from the mid-19th is a bit of a stretch. Regardless of your opinion on one or another issue, things are so different now from what they were then that the comparisons are bound to be somewhat out of whack.

Second, trying to attach a politician now to an (un)popular politician from that era, in order to (damage) burnish their reputation is equally problematic, if not more so. Obama isn’t Lincoln, but he’s also not Stephen Douglas, John C. Calhoun, or Roger Taney. The idea, frankly, is ludicrous.

Issues then were dealt with, by the candidates, much more clearly than they are now. The Lincoln-Douglas debates are mentioned, without much discussion of their format. The candidates asked each other questions, in writing in advance, and answered each other with speeches that took hours or large portions of them. There were no moderators to protect one candidate at the expense of the other, no fluff or silly questions, no three-minute answers, few if any opportunities to evade questions you didn’t want to answer. Neither Obama nor John McCain had to answer questions in such a format.

Remember, that means *both* Lincoln *and* Douglas defended their ideas with a depth and logic of argument that doesn’t occur today, regardless of the politician. Only a selective reading of the Lincoln-Douglas debates can lead you to the conclusion that Lincoln was less evasive that Douglas was on the issues of the day. Douglas, during the debates, famously maneuvered Lincoln into asserting that he wasn’t in favor of what was then termed “Negro equality” except in that the “Negro” involved should be equally able to benefit from his labor (in other words he should receive wages, and not be a slave). The idea that somehow Douglas was a deceiver, and that you can equate his opinions with Obama’s, is pretty silly. Obama isn’t really like either man, beyond that he comes from Illinois (well really from Hawaii, but we’ve never had a Hawaiian president, and we’re stretching for a comparison here).

As for the idiot trying to connect Lincoln to a “larger” government because of his supposed support for tariffs, which the South opposed: this is a typical stalking horse by a few renegade, stubborn southerners who desperately want to believe that the Civil War wasn’t about slavery. Black people were *happy* to be slaves, right up until meddling abolitionists from the North came and put ideas in their heads. The war wasn’t about slavery, it was about *tariffs*, and then they get confused (why, if the war wasn’t about slavery, are they so upset that slavery was abolished?). One interesting sidenote to all of this is that while they supposedly were in favor of smaller government (thereby trying to associate themselves with conservative Republicans, which when I think of it always makes me want to take a shower), they were in favor of extending the size and power of the Federal government in one significant issue: they badly wanted escaped slaves returned to their masters, and saw the government as the agent that should do it for them. One of the major pieces of legislation in the 1850s that caused considerable debate in Congress was the Fugitive Slave Act.

I’m not sure why Calhoun’s name was mentioned in the title of the article; it doesn’t appear in the body. Perhaps they edited out the portion dealing with him. The idea of Obama being compared with Calhoun, though, is so laughable it’s beyond belief. They both have two arms, two legs, and two eyes, and they speak (sort of) the same language. That’s about it. Calhoun was a firebrand from South Carolina, a staunch advocate of slavery, opponent of the Federal government’s power to the point of advocating nullification (which *was* about tariffs, but that issue was 1832 and for another post), and a very loud and strident proponent of State’s Rights. Obama, whatever his actions, is in voice a moderate man. Calhoun would never have been mistaken for a moderate *anything*.

Taney was a cranky old Supreme Court Chief Justice who became irrelevant once Lincoln became president, and began to ignore some of his rulings on the logic of military necessity. Anyone think that’s a road down which we should proceed? And how is Obama to be compared to him, given that Obama is President, not Chief Justice? Now I’m just confused, and I have a headache…

History can teach us things, sure. You have to use logic and try not to shoehorn one person or group into another era, though, in order to use it properly.

Yes, They are both half black, they were both believers in Tyranny, thy both looked at the Constitution as just a scrap of paper. Obama hasn’t started a Civil War yet, as Lincoln did but he will. Both have done enormous amounts of damage to both the Idea of self governance and the American example of that Idea.
Both use Spin machines (propaganda) to alter the reality of their administration to something more Chevezish.
Lincoln was only stopped by the sacrifice of America’s greatest hero, John Wilkes Booth. Not sure what will stop the Usurper, I expect it to be either an IED or a ManPAD. Sargent York?

The Confederates states started the Civil War by first, refusing to accept Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States and secondly by attacking Fort Sumter, a fort of the U.S. The fantasy that the Civil War could have been avoided by accepting the secession of the Confederate states ignores the fact that they were bound to accept Abraham Lincoln as President by election and that they would then have gone on to try to conquer the Western Territories and introduce slavery there.
President Obama is no Abraham Lincoln; he is dishonest and a narcisstic power-grabber who has no respect for the Constitution.

It is worth noting that Lincoln was widely underestimated through his entire career. If not for his assassination and the victory of the north, he might not “enjoy” the heights reached since the civil war. In contrast, one can make a case that Obama enjoys the good fortune of being widely overestimated. Of course, time will tell and it will take much better judgement than is contained within the mass media.

If one must look to the Lincoln era, then Obama most resembles Lincoln’s two Secretaries of War. Like Simon Cameron he is a totally corrupt machine politician and like Edwin Stanton he is a megalomaniac.

You’re missing the nuances of Anderson and Guerra’s argument, which are as follows:

SLAVERY BAD
ABORTION BAD
OBAMA BAD

SLAVERY=ABORTION=OBAMA

I think you missed the point of their argument. I am against abortion, and of course slavery, and I dislike Obama’s politics too…that doesn’t make him John C. Calhoun, Roger Taney, or Stephen Douglas, as I said. I think their analogy is wrong-headed; I suspect nuance is completely lost on you, unless it absolves Obama of any errors or culpability.

26. Typos_R_Us:

Yes, They are both half black, they were both believers in Tyranny, thy both looked at the Constitution as just a scrap of paper. Obama hasn’t started a Civil War yet, as Lincoln did but he will. Both have done enormous amounts of damage to both the Idea of self governance and the American example of that Idea.
Both use Spin machines (propaganda) to alter the reality of their administration to something more Chevezish.
Lincoln was only stopped by the sacrifice of America’s greatest hero, John Wilkes Booth. Not sure what will stop the Usurper, I expect it to be either an IED or a ManPAD. Sargent York?

Lincoln wasn’t “half-black”. This rumor was started by racists, mostly Southerners, 150 or so years ago. No one anything like a serious historian now takes it seriously. Lincoln understood that the Constitution wasn’t and isn’t a suicide pact, and took steps to enforce the election of himself as president, because a country where the minority can leave because they don’t like the majority’s choice of president isn’t really a democracy, it’s chaos.

Oh, and John Wilkes Booth was a spoiled child, and a coward. He was a Confederate sympathizer during the war, a good shot and a superior horseman. He also claimed to be an honorable gentleman. Did he join the Confederate army? Of course not, he played various stage roles throughout the war, making a lot of money for himself, and then he shot the president in the back of the head. Didn’t even have the courage to face him first. Hero? You couldn’t find a bigger coward! Cornered in a burning barn in Virginia, and shot for his trouble.

As to Lincoln’s reputation: if he’d lived, he probably would have persisted in pushing his reconstruction ideas for the South. Johnson tried the same thing, but wasn’t able to keep the Radical Republicans with him, because of his own Democratic party roots. Lincoln probably would have been able to build a coalition and keep it going; if he had, Reconstruction would have been shorter and less painful, and the recovery from the war swifter. I expect, if all of this had come to pass, that Lincoln’s reputation would be even better than it was, rather than worse. “Counterfactuals” are always amusing, because people have their preconceived ideas of how things “should” have worked out, and when they consider the ifs of history they usually let that color what they think.

Oh, and #26 Typos_R_Us: You’re the guy I was speaking about when I said after reading what some conservatives say, I want to take a shower. Just because you have a right to free speech doesn’t mean you have to exercise it, and make a fool of yourself, letting everyone know what a racist jackass you are.

Perhaps, but none of southern politicians and newspapers ever mentioned it as a primary factor for secession. Secession was due to slavery not tariffs.

The south traded with Europe for manufactured goods because the perception at the time was that British, German or French products were superior to those manufactured in the north.

Then they were wrong. It can have been true in 1800 but by 1850 a British delegation toured the United States and found that the higher degree of mechanization (due to scarce and expensive manpower) plus the very high rate of literacy in American working class (well over 90% in New England) allowed american industry to produce higher quality goods than the British one was producing. Now for luxury goods you can’t count on Yankee taste to produce clothes who will make a plantation owner look good in parties but for everything else american products were better. Rifles to begin with.

Since today is the day ten years ago that JKF Jr. was knocked off by his own party, making him the Abraham’s son, or the “Yankee” soldier, who gave his life so Obama could be “free”…I thought I’d mention it somewheres…It was a pretty certain event back in 1999 that if JFK Jr. stepped into the ring…This African “suave-sophisticate” cartoon would have never seen the light of day….Also the Democratic Party would not have needed to go slumming into the radicalism that it has and most likely would have been far more pleasantly moderate towards the American Constitution then desperately tryin’ to uphold the high maintenace of their new bed buddies…CErtainly the media wouldn’t have to be in the denial phase of DABDA lik eit is now. I’m pretty sure the Clinton’s network had a deal in on that hit. “1st Black President” Bill?…”You OWE us!”
Just as I percieve it was then, with Abraham Lincoln as President, the same biblical reference of Abraham’s son is being evoked to justify such a “sacrafice” because it still is considered a heroic tale of faith and righteous intent.
But it is being exploited for merely face-value by a bunch of star-gazers these days.

DavidN….Why are you here anyway? Wouldn’t you be more at home on a hate-filled site like Dailykos or Huff N Puff? We would not be allowed to post on those sites because they are totalitarian leftist, and do not believe in free speech, unless its looney-left speech.

You see, only self-loathing, guilt-tripped white liberals are allowed on Dailykos, and the Huffington Post, so I’m sure you will fit in perfectly.

I guess our biggest problem is that many of us went to school pre-1980, and were not subjected to 12+ years of left-wing indoctrination.

The American education system has created a generation of self-absorbed dolts.

DavidN….Why are you here anyway? Wouldn’t you be more at home on a hate-filled site like Dailykos or Huff N Puff? We would not be allowed to post on those sites because they are totalitarian leftist, and do not believe in free speech, unless its looney-left speech.

You see, only self-loathing, guilt-tripped white liberals are allowed on Dailykos, and the Huffington Post, so I’m sure you will fit in perfectly.

I guess our biggest problem is that many of us went to school pre-1980, and were not subjected to 12+ years of left-wing indoctrination.

The American education system has created a generation of self-absorbed dolts.
Jul 17, 2009 – 7:08 am 36. Blarty Blarckleblart:

I suspect nuance is completely lost on you, unless it absolves Obama of any errors or culpability.

Oooh, zing!

Look at this! One idiot tells me I’d be happier on DailyKos or HuffPo, and the next boohoos because I bashed his lefty silliness. You have to wonder about some people.

I’m here, steveg, because I’m a Republican, and about 75% of the time I agree at least generally with the writer of any particular article I read here. Since the articles often contradict one another (deliberately, I think; the editors are trying to present multiple points of view) I think that’s pretty good. I was bored silly in high school and paid no attention (almost didn’t graduate), and never really attended college. I have, however, read a *lot* of book since then (more than you, I would hazard; the total is upwards of 5000 now) and paid a lot of attention to history and its uses in modern politics and thought. There are a lot of interesting attempts, by various figures, to shoehorn one political figure or another into some historical context or discussion. They almost always fail, no matter what they context or era that’s being compared.

Oh and one last thing, steveg. I graduated from a private Christian high school in 1977…pre-1980. One of our teachers actually told me she didn’t think Dr. King deserved the Nobel Peace Prize he got. Not exactly a bastion of liberalism, but I’d learned to think for myself a bit when I got there, and as time went on the impulse grew.

I’m also not sure what part of my comments you disliked…Did you actually believe the old canard that Lincoln was half-black? That one went the way of the dodo a long time ago. If you told me what you disagreed with, I’d either explain where you were wrong or correct myself. Try being more articulate next time.

As for you Blarty, I’m ignoring you. You’re a contrarian idiot, and I don’t have time to bother debating you.

if Lincoln was half black then everything we know about genetics since Mendel has to be thrown out. You see white genes are recessive so a half-black looks basically like a Black. Look at former tennis player Yannick Noah in order to see why a half black looks like.

“The Confederates states started the Civil War by first, refusing to accept Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States and secondly by attacking Fort Sumter, a fort of the U.S. The fantasy that the Civil War could have been avoided by accepting the secession of the Confederate states ignores the fact that they were bound to accept Abraham Lincoln as President by election and that they would then have gone on to try to conquer the Western Territories and introduce slavery there.”

Propaganda. The FACTS are that in 1860, there was no Constitutional law AGAINST secession. It was perfectly legal for any State to secede from the Union and form it’s own nation. Once that happened it was incumbent on the United states to remove it’s troops from what is now a foreign nation. Lincoln didn’t even though he knew it would mean war. Instead he sent reinforcements to certain military outposts in what was a new nation.
If Mexico had troops in Houston and the USA told them to leave and Mexico sent reinforcements which led the USA to start shooting at the Mexicans, who started the war?
No, Lincoln started that war.
As far as Slavery, it was NOT the Major issue for the South. For the South, the war was about the ability to write their own laws and run their own lives. Slavery would have ended anyway, just thru economics. It is cheaper to pay a man a low wage and let him pay for his own food shelter, etc then it is to support that same man. Sharecropping is always more profitable for the owner then slavery.
That was part of the propaganda campaign Lincoln’s minions put together. Lincoln started the war because he thought he had ALL the advantages. He didn’t, which is why the war lasted as long as it did.
The North had many advantages but the South had better leaders.
As Lincoln said after a guerrilla raid on a rear area supply depot that captured 1200 horses, tons of powder, hundreds of rifles and one General, ‘I can create a new General and buy more rifles, but how will I replace those horses?’
Despite it’s advantages the North won because of Chamberlain and Melcher, men you have probably never hear of.

Simply put, Little round Top falls, the Union flank is turned, there is no Pickets charge and the Union Army is defeated again. Lee Marches thru Pennsylvania to Philadelphia and the war is over. At that time the Union’s ONLY field army available was the one facing Lee. The other Union Armies were to far away to help or get between Lee and the Industrial North. Yes, they had more men, but Lee could have marched to New York before those men reached the battlefield.

“People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.”
-Otto Von Bismarck

Here is the question I want you to answer;
If Slavery was enough to make the North invade the South, why does the USA accept the Slavery practiced today in Saudia Arabis, the Sudan, etc.

If the North went to war over Slavery, why aren’t they fighting it today? You would think maybe a 1/2 black President would be interested, wouldn’t you.
No the FACT that America turned a blind eye to slavery as soon as the South surrendered should tell you there was another motive.

#40 Barty, Lincoln is either 1/2 black or a bastard. His father had his land taken from him in a court of law 3 times. That was in Kentucky where blacks were not allowed to own land. That is why his father moved to Illinois, which was a ‘free’ state that allowed Negros to own land. So either Lincoln was 1/2 black or there was a white man in the woodshed. Your Choice. Some Historians claim the man in the woodshed was black, that Lincoln’s father was Sterile. His Law Partner describe Lincoln as having dark skin and course hair.

“If one considers the fact that European men far outnumbered European women during the founding of this country, and that the rape and impregnation of an African female slave was not considered a crime, it is even more surprising that these two authors could not document Black ancestors among an ever larger number of former presidents. The president’s names include Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding, and Calvin Coolidge.”
I used to play chess and drink berer with a Professor of Africian Studies at Howard University. He told me that if you used the one drop rule, all the pure white men in America would fit on the same bus. I asked him when was the last time he visited West “By God” Virginia.

I have several responses to John Samford’s conventional, if a bit wrong-headed analysis of the Civil War. Many “what if” specialists believe, as Mr. Samford does, that if Chamberlain hadn’t held Little Round Top the North would have lost the war. I’ll grant you that the loss of the hill *might* have cost the Union the battle, though it’s not certain. The difficulty is that even if the Union had lost the battle, Lee’s army probably would have had to retreat afterwards. Even given that they hadn’t made Pickett’s Charge, they’d still suffered extensive casualties by the evening of the second day, and their ammunition was very depleted. Regardless of what you think, they almost certainly wouldn’t have captured the Union supply train. Instead they’d have been stuck in hostile territory with little ammo and thousands of wounded being transported in wagons. Lee wouldn’t have taken Philadelphia; he’d probably be faced with trying to return to Virginia, as he actually did.

If you want to put it that way, Chamberlain didn’t win the war, Grant did. Grant’s the boogeyman of the Civil War, according to Southerners, because he was the bearer of the message that while Lee was a brilliant tactician, he was only a mediocre strategist. Grant wasn’t the tactician Lee was, but his strategic wisdom made that irrelevant. He wound up pinning Lee’s army down, and then crushing it while it was robbed of its mobility. Relative casualty figures, discussions of honor and courage and so forth, and tactical brilliance are all irrelevant: Grant’s strategy worked, and Lee’s army surrendered.

As to the silliness of Lincoln being black: a few “knowledgeable” people think this one is proven. It’s not. It’s not even a possibility. Lincoln’s family was dirt poor; his father was illiterate, and thought his son learning to read a waste of time. No one who knew him thought him black; he married into a socially prominent Kentucky family which owned slaves. Do you think Mary Todd’s father, the Colonel, would have tolerated his little girl marrying a black man? You racist dingbats always have to cherry-pick the facts in order to make them fit your silly theories. And the idiot from Howard you used to drink beer with had probably had a few too many. Sorry, but half this country arrived her after slavery, and isn’t of African descent.

All of this being said, if your stupidity were to prove correct, SO WHAT?!? If Lincoln was indeed black, what does that prove, other than you dislike black people and are determined to smear him because of the supposed color of his skin? Actually, I can’t believe I’m arguing with you about this: people like you are rarely confused by logic or facts.

I disagree on one point with you it was not Grant but Sherman who won the war. First by taking Atlanta thus ensuring Lincoln’s reelection. Without it there is a definite possibility that the Copperhead candidate would have been elected and accepted Secession. After that it was Sherman’s March to the sea who broke South’s back even if you can argue that food shortages and the crumbling of its economy would have ended bringing sooner or later the South to its knees but at a heavier price in blood and treasure.

Anyway the theory that Lincoln was a a half black is simply ridiculous. Even people who are only 25% or 12.5% black have enough negroid features they can’t pass for “real” whites. These features are conspicuously absent in Lincoln. For half blacks they look definitely like Blacks.

Finally an intelligent point that disagrees with me! I’ll grant you Sherman was at least as influential as Grant, with one proviso. Sherman was Grant’s no. 1 assistant, and without Grant Sherman would probably have remained an obscure division commander; perhaps he would have been given a Corps in 1864. Grant and he trusted one another as few soldiers then or since have. But you’re right: Sherman had a great influence on the outcome of the war. So, for that matter, did Sheridan (who won Cedar Creek and sparked a small legend, that added to the mystique of the Lincoln administration and the war effort) and Thomas, who remains the only Civil War general to have annihilated an enemy army on the battlefield, at Nashville in the winter of ’64. I was just trying to make the point as simply as possible: Chamberlain was merely a cog in the machine, but Grant was the guy who designed the whole thing. For what it’s worth, my bad.